News

It's common to hear Diane Dupuy's friends and supporters describe her as a “force of nature.” But nature's own forces and a city strike have slowed even her formidable momentum.

The founder of Famous People Players, a Toronto fixture for 35 years, found herself without a home for her theatrical ensemble, forced to fund an expensive move and renovation to survive. The costs ballooned as a slew of setbacks, including severe storms, battered her best-laid plans.

But on Friday, Dupuy stood proudly with federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty as a ribbon was clipped by comically oversized scissors, officially opening the company's new Etobicoke home. What her beaming smile didn't betray was how far from the finish line she still is – even the 200-seat theatre that housed the ceremony isn't complete.

“ It's really amazing what a person can do who sets their mind on trying to do something good. ”— Eugene Levy

Nearly three years ago, the Players – Toronto's black-light dinner-theatre performers, most of whom have mental or physical disabilities – were being recognized for helping to revitalize the Queen and Dovercourt neighbourhood, which Dupuy says was “hooker city” when she started the company there in 1974.

Maybe they did too good a job: Now a trendy stretch peppered with art galleries, its property values have skyrocketed, prompting the company's landlord to evict them this summer to make way for a high-rise.

The landlord had always been good to the company, so Dupuy didn't put up a fight. Instead, she put three realtors on the hunt for a property that would fit her needs and come relatively cheap. After a lengthy search, Dupuy snapped up an industrial-looking site on Evans Avenue in Toronto's west end at the 11th hour.

“This was a real hole when we moved in here,” Dupuy said recently, glancing around the property's newly renovated dining room, now with high-backed booths, 10-person tables and decorated in reds, yellows and purples. Benny Donofrio, a Player for 34 years, agrees the new digs are “much better” than the old ones, especially as there are now no stairs to navigate.

But the improvements came at a steep price. On May 1, they took hold of the new site with plans for an $850,000 renovation – a figure Dupuy says was too optimistic. The same day, the city's new developer's fee took effect and Dupuy was slapped with an unexpected $186,000 bill, the first step in a gradual slide into a financial quagmire.

With construction under way, the summer brought violent rain storms, flooding the site and cutting power for long stretches. Unforeseen construction costs started to pile up. Then city workers went on strike, and Dupuy couldn't get authorities to sign off on changes to the building. The original opening date of Aug. 1 came and went, and fall ticket revenue Dupuy had been counting on evaporated. The tab eventually settled at $1.3-million.

Mercifully, the city has agreed to waive the $186,000 bill, thanks largely to the efforts of local city councillor Mark Grimes and lawyer Bob Onyschuk. The federal government has also given the company $585,000 through the Cultural Spaces Canada program, and the Ontario Trillium Foundation chipped in $150,000. But the company still carries a $457,000 deficit.

Dupuy, introduced Friday as “the ultimate dreamer” and “Donna Quixote,” pledged to a crowd of supporters that, with help, they will break even again.

“It's really amazing what a person can do who sets their mind on trying to do something good,” said Eugene Levy, a long-time supporter who once did voiceover work for a company show, at Friday's ribbon cutting. “It's a herculean effort.”

A few feet away on a nearby wall covered with pictures of other famous supporters – Paul Newman, Pierre Trudeau, Tony Bennett, Martin Short, Liberace – hangs a yellowing clipping from a 1974 article in a Toronto newspaper. The writer describes how Dupuy had “admitted” that two thirds of her performers were “mentally retarded.”

“It reminds me of how far we've come,” Dupuy said.

And she isn't stopping here. Undaunted by unprecedented debts, the company has already purchased 84 acres of land in Ancaster, Ont., for its next project with a lead gift from benefactor Lucile Pratt. Dupuy plans to build a $10-million “green” arts and agricultural centre where the troupe will work, growing the food for the theatre's restaurant on a farm that uses solar energy, rainwater recycling, a bio-retention garden, a green roof and geothermal heating and cooling.

“We're a real grassroots, humble company,” Dupuy explains. But humility wasn't on display at the ribbon cutting as she relentlessly kidded and cajoled politicians and backers, aligning their chequebooks behind her singular vision through sheer force of personality.